BSOD error parameters

This is off-topic with regard to reversing but I am desperate and hoping one of you guys has come across it. It is related to the reversing work I am doing but calling it on-topic is a stretch. I have researched this online till I'm blue in the face but finding the NT parameters to describe the exact type of BSOD is near impossible.

Please delete if not acceptable.

What I am really looking for is a link to a Microsoft article, like in the DDK or whatever, that would explain the error in detail.

I am doing a repair install with an XP OS and I have encountered a BSOD in phase 4 (actually Session3) which is a brief part of the installation. I get the following error:

Stop 0x0000006F (0xC000000E, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)

Description: Session3_initialization_failed

I need to find out what the 0xC000000E parameter means.

There is no dmp file, which is odd, and the setupapi log shows the installation ending with a reference to iastor.sys with a reference to %windir%\system32\drivers. I thought there might be an issue with registry hive permissions but I checked and they were good compared to a working copy of XP.

Apparently the error references configuration files, but which ones?

It's supposed to have something to do with a missing or corrupted file, namely smss.exe, ftdisk.sys, winlogon.exe, ntdll.dll, or ntoskrnl.exe. I have replaced all of them.

It's possible that my installation disk is corrupt since it is a slipstreamed version. However, I substituted another slipstreamed disk hoping it would get me past that stage but it did not.

possibly you have a corrupt smss.exe which is failing when RtlUserCreateProcess is called in phase3 initialization

Brilliant, Blabbs, just what I was looking for.

BTW...how did you find the NT status and how did you manage to create an 0x6F bugcheck in windbg in such a manner as to detect it? I was reading last night that it is possible to induce a BSOD intentionally via the keyboard (a PS/2 keyboard is required in XP). It worked, giving me a page fault, but no dmp file was recorded, possibly because I am in install mode. Apparently that method is good if you have a frozen system but no BSOD. You can induce a BSOD from the keyboard then trace the error causing the frozen condition.

I replaced smss.exe already along with several other files with no difference in the BSOD. However, your revelation above re the NT parameter 0xc000000e reveals a lot.

I used nlite to integrate USB drivers into the slipstreamed install disk and they do work during the installation. However, I integrated a second set of USB drivers for my USB addon card with a VIA chipset and it won't be found till the PCIe slot is fully functional. That could be the problem right there, I had been experiencing issues with the PCIe bus after doing a repair install with the stock XP SP3 disk.

I had taken steps to amend that last night by creating two new install disks, one with a SATA driver and no USB drivers and one with only the mainboard USB drivers. Have not yet tested either since I forgot to included the right ACPI.sys in the ISO. Without it I get an error 0xA5, which can be bypassed at the F6 prompt by pressing F7.

today you see people on a tablet or a smartphone or beloved windows 10

where its about to know how and where to click or controling a software over pushes

there where so many stuff about that time, maybe it still is but they used to make for softice maybe a bit later ollydbg

windbg and ida apears into the room

but still it seems like a empty room the forums are empty the examples for new programs are very low

but back to your problem
cant you break at either the driver entry or driver control like iofcalldriver
if that isnt possible there is certainly a chain loader or a process you can break before that happens

but back to your problem
cant you break at either the driver entry or driver control like iofcalldriver
if that isnt possible there is certainly a chain loader or a process you can break before that happens

First, I have to set up a kernel mode debugging session from W7 to XP. It has been done but I have not tried it yet. Furthermore, I am stuck in the middle of a repair installation and I'm not sure if XP will respond, even if the serial port is available.

BTW...just made two more installation disks, one with sata, acpi, and the USB drivers for the chipset, and the other with SATA and ACPI only. The disk boots to the repair prompt OK, and loads files, but when it reboots it starts loading XP then fails after a few seconds with the bugcheck 0x6F.

I may have a problem in my txtsetup.sif setup script or in the registry.

According to this, VSL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED is a new addition to bugcodes.h in the Windows SDK. Windbg must be using good defines.

From what I could gather, VSL is a reference to the processor virtualization, like hyper-v. I tested that by turning off both of my virtualization settings in BIOS to no effect.

The problem turned out to be in the registry. I have a lot of dormant stuff in there from at least three generations of Intel chipsets, from ICH4 - ICH9 onto the G-series. Maybe the installation software hit something it did not like while enumerating.

The install phase causing the error is supposed to be a 'brief' configuration stage for the executive. I would presume that means it is configuring the executive to set up devices via ACPI, etc. I replaced the 5 registry hives, Default, SAM, Security, Software, and System, from a backup set I had made from November 2019, and the installation proceeded fine.

I might advise anyone reading this to make a backup regularly of the registry. It's easy to do if done from another OS. I was running two versions of XP on separate disks and in that case it's a matter of going to %windir%\System32\config in the OFFLINE drive, where the registry hives are stored, Just copy the files listed above to another directory or a backup drive.

I have noticed that W10 has a way of blocking certain files from being copied, even if it's offline. To get around that, I use a boot disk based on WINPE or Linux.

Anyway, I was doing a repair install with a disk slipstreamed with XP SP3 and the unofficial SP4 update that can be found at the ryanVM site. I did the repair because the SP4 update not only updates most of the XP updates, it also adds drivers for my new Intel B360 chipset. Every one of the features of that chipset are now active on XP, from the serial ports to the 6 core processor, except for one...the LAN driver. Working on that.

The SP4 update has more than 6 driver packs integrated into it. It setup my Nvidia card and my Creative XFi sound card while it was at it, no easy feat.

VSL is a new name for old barley ...it is a name for the winxers not for the xperts...for the rusty old xperts it was or still is Session3_initialization_failure

The latter makes far more sense as I am still trying to find out what VSL means. I have discovered meanings from the Vienna Symphonic Library to the Venezuelan Summer League (baseball) but very little pertaining to computerese.

As I posted earlier, the better definition, posted by you, was in relation to hardware that is not present. That gave me confidence to follow up on the registry aspect since Session3 is supposed to be a brief 'configuration' phase of a Windows installation in which the Executive is initialized. That meant to me an ini file, an error in the answer file, or the registry itself.

I still have not figured out which hardware was not present because a bsod during an OS installatiion apparently does not result in a bug report. At least, I could not find one nor could a file search find one with a 'dmp' extension.